If you know a little bit about me you know that I currently work in the receiving department at Walmart. We get thousands and thousands of boxes shipped to our store every single day. In those shipments are these special boxes called break-packs.
A break-pack is a giant heavy box about as wide and heavy as grandma’s 1983 box television. Inside a break-pack is a plethora of random stuff. It’s usually small things that can’t have their own box like shaving cream, eye shadow, markers etc. all the small items get put in a break-pack.
I went to pick up a break pack at work the other day, I knew it was heavy but I still wanted to try it. A coworker stopped me and said, “Bryant, let me help you carry that heavy box.”
I replied “No, I can carry this by-myself.”
I picked up the break-pack, it was heavy and it broke and spilled everywhere! Almost 1,300 random things were thrown everywhere all over the floor… Leaving me feeling defeated.
How often does this happen in our life? We have a burden, a heavy load like a financial storm or marriage problems that we can’t carry alone but we refuse the help that’s right in front of us. When I refused the help, the pieces scattered everywhere. Have you ever felt this way? You have or had a load that was to heavy, a crushing weight on you but refused the help. The weight crushed, the pieces of your life scattered everywhere and you felt alone, broken and ashamed.
After my break-pack crushed me I felt alone as if my coworkers had given up. I felt ashamed because I refused the help that was offered to me.
We often refuse help from others because we want to overcome our struggles on our own strengths and abilities when in reality its not possible.
It’s not fun to fail. I don’t think anyone would ever say that it is. In order to ask for help it requires us to put our pride to the side because we physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally cannot carry the deep weight of life on our own shoulders.
Solomon was the wisest guy to have ever lived. He wrote this down in the book of Ecclesiastes for us so that we could get a picture of what true community looks like.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12New Living Translation (NLT)
9 Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. 10 If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. 11 Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? 12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.
When we have other people in our corner fighting alongside of us and cheering for our good than we will accomplish victory. Like my break-pack that busted everywhere, if I would have listened and taken the help I was offered than the mess would have never happened. Two people fighting a problem is better than one person fighting a problem.
3 Steps To Walk In Freedom
1. Reach out to someone.
This needs to be someone who you can trust with your entire life. Someone you would feel comfortable telling your deepest darkest secrets to. The more people we have in our corner the greater chance we have to succeed.
2. Confess what you are struggling with to the person that you trust.
Confession only helps us grow and become stronger while not confessing only tears us down and makes us feel alone and defeated.
James 5:16 New International Version (NIV)
16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Confession is what sets us free from confinement. When we confess something, we can feel the freedom that God has called us to live in.
3. Apply to your life what that person says to you.
One reason we don’t experience change and freedom is because we don’t apply what we have been told. Whatever our mentor tells us is only going to help.
Bryant Westbrook 